WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller said many large jurisdictions offer no such benefit to their top officials. Despite a declining population and ever-growing budget pressure, the city of Baltimore not only keeps executive protection in place, it allows it to grow.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has quite the entourage as she travels about. She rides in a city-owned sport utility vehicle while accompanied by City Hall staffers. Wherever she goes, she has protection by city police officers whose sole duty is to provide the mayor with executive protection, which all comes with a cost.

For the last fiscal year, overtime alone for the mayor's executive protection accounted for $103,765 -- substantially higher than overtime costs for fiscal year 2011, which came in at $69,823.

One big reason for the increase: The unit grew from six officers in the previous year to the current number of seven officers.

The mayor's security also travels with her out of town, which added another $7,700 in the last fiscal year. Add the overtime cost and the minimum salaries of the officers, and the cost of protecting the mayor is at least $431,507 -- enough to cover the starting salaries of 10 police officers.

Executive protection is also provided to the police commissioner, who carries a gun himself. Two officers assigned to protect outgoing Commissioner Fred Bealefeld made $38,600 in overtime last year.

Baltimore City State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein also gets police protection, the overtime costs for which amounted to $38,987 last year. Bernstein's office said his protection unit also does other duties.

On Thursday, the 11 News I-Team saw the officers driving Bernstein at lunch.

By comparison, neither Baltimore County's state's attorney nor the U.S. Attorney for Maryland, who handles federal prosecutions, has executive protection.

The 11 News I-Team asked the mayor's press secretary to explain the overtime bill for the mayor's executive protection and asked why the size of the unit got bigger. He didn't answer those questions. Instead he offered the following statement in its entirety: "Mayor Rawlings-Blake has cut the mayor's office budget by 22 percent since becoming mayor, and we are reasonably confident that the total cost of executive protection has also declined since the previous administration. All decisions regarding security staffing are made by the Baltimore Police Department, and, like the mayor, officers often work 14- to 16-hour days and weekends."

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